This volume of Advances in Teacher Education is about beliefs held by teachers and addresses the important topic of teacher beliefs from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Most of the authors who have contributed to this collection of essays assume that beliefs are propositions that are felt to be true by the person embracing them, but that do not necessarily rest on the kind of evidence that justifies the use of the term “knowledge.” Teacher beliefs are an important topic because it is hypothesized that teachers and teacher candidates use them to shape the information they receive from formal teacher preparation and to direct subsequent decision-making in the classroom.

This volume of Advances in Teacher Education is about beliefs held by teachers and addresses the important topic of teacher beliefs from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Teacher beliefs play a fundamental role in the education landscape. Nevertheless, most educational researchers only allude to teacher beliefs as part of a study on other subjects. This book fills a necessary gap by identifying the importance of research on teacher beliefs and providing a comprehensive overview of the topic. It provides novices and experts alike a single volume with which to understand a complex research landscape. Including a review of the historical foundations of the field, this book identifies current research trends, and summarizes the current knowledge base regarding teachers’ specific beliefs about content, instruction, students, and learning. For its innumerable applications within the field, this handbook is a necessity for anyone interested in educational research.

Increasing diversity in schools in the United States over the last few decades, combined with an emphasis on high-stakes testing, has heightened concerns about the academic performance of students of color, in particular African American students. There are concerns about the appropriateness of a Eurocentric curriculum taught by White teachers, which often limits the use of a multicultural curriculum--one that values the culture and lifestyles of diverse students. This study focused on elements within teaching practices that improved achievement among students of color. An enhanced application of the Multiple Meanings of Multicultural Teacher Education Framework (MTEF), along with assessments of teacher training instruments (Gay, 1994; Love, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1994), helped to create the Model for Modified Multicultural Teacher Education Framework on Teacher Perception of Student Achievement that served as a guide for the investigation. The overall findings confirmed the utility of the model and the enhancements made to the multicultural assessment instruments. Depending upon what elements were chosen, between 18% and 23% of the variance explained in teacher's beliefs, attitudes and perceptions could be explained by their training, their community involvement, awareness of self, knowledge of subject and a positive approach to the institutional culture. The findings support the existing literature and adds to it a new dimension by directly focusing on teacher's perceptions, attitudes and beliefs that promote or constrain teaching and learning about urban African American students in the urban classroom.

Recent worldwide education policy has reinvented teachers as agents of change and professional developers of the school curriculum. Academic literature has analyzed changes in how teacher professionalism is conceived in policy and in practice but Teacher Agency provides a fresh perspective on this issue, drawing upon an ecological theory of agency. Using this model for understanding agency, Mark Priestley, Gert Biesta and Sarah Robinson explore empirical findings from the 'Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change' project, funded by the UK-based Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Drawing together this research with the authors' international experiences and perspectives, Teacher Agency addresses theoretical and practical issues of international significance. The authors illustrate how teacher agency should be understood not only in terms of individual capacity of teachers, but also in respect of the cultures and structures of schooling.

The International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching provides a fresh look at the ever changing nature of the teaching profession throughout the world. This collection of over 70 articles addresses a wide range of issues relevant for understanding the present educational climate in which the accountability of teachers and the standardized testing of students have become dominant.